The Only Way is Essex

Hey, guess what? I'm still alive! Hurrah! Sorry I've not done much on here but I've been busy. You know, like really busy. You would not believe how busy I've been. I've been so busy I'm off the Busyometer scale. Yeah, you know really, really busy. I've been busy doing all sorts of stuff. Busy hating Harry Redknapp takes up a lot of my time at the moment. But I've taken time out of hating Harry Redknapp to do this. You lucky bastards.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, David Essex. I'm young enough to remember a time when David Essex wasn't famous. He's always been there. Whether winking at the camera on Top of the Pops or hosting his own TV show or having a sitcom written for him. I quite like him. I like him so much I went to see him in his musical All the Fun of the Fair last week with members of the family. It's not the best musical you'll ever see but it's a diverting couple of hours and live entertainment's always better than staying in watching the telly, isn't it?
Looking at the programme I was reminded what a great talent his is. Essex gets the sole writing credit on all but one of the songs in the show - and it's one of those jukebox musicals where the songs are already known to you. It has to be said there were quite a few hits in there so he's clearly not just a pretty face. Take Rock On for instance; that is a great record. It still sounds fresh nearly forty years later, in fact the opening bass chords are quite scary (it has to be said that some of the songs are shoehorned in to the musical: "Do you know what, Jonny? We're gonna make you a star!" Cue the song).
But what I admire most about Essex is his film Stardust. I love that film. The thing is that he can actually act as well as write and sing all of the songs. I first saw Stardust when I recorded on to video a late night showing when I must have been about 14. The thing that struck me most at the time was the scene where he goes to bed with a pair of buxom twins. For a 14 year-old that was just the most mind-blowing thing I'd ever seen (although having read Hammer of the Gods and Motley Crue's books, bedding a pair of twins sounds like tea at Grandma's). It's still a film I love though, as I love a lot of films of that era like Slade in Flame. It's the age-old story of boy wants to be rock star, becomes rock star, gets into the 'H', gets his head together in the country, overdoses live on TV. If you've never seen it please do, especially as Paul Nicholas gets kicked out the band, Peter Duncan's in it, Dave Edmunds tries to act and Keith Moon plays himself. And the title song played over the closing credits is just magnificent. Look at this; Stardust with That'll Be the Day is less than seven of your English pounds on Amazon.
Anyway, I like David Essex (as do an awful lot of ladies of a pretty wide age range) and can do an impression of him. Yeah.

Go on, knock yourself out, it's Friday:

Hey nonny-nonny

Did you have a nice weekend watching telly? I did. I was struck by two programmes on BBC4 about traditional music and dance. First up was Charles Haywood's Come Clog Dancing, where the conductor tried to get the people of the North East reinterest in their tradition of clog dancing. Sounds like a bit of a dry old subject, eh? Well, I quite enjoyed it, and thefalsh mob manner in which it was done - in the centre of Newcastle - was a stroke of genius.
The second programme featured the Unthank sisters. I don't know if you know then but they're a couple of sisters from Northumberland who sing folk songs and incorporate clog dancing into their live shows. I've always found their music a little dreary and Rachel Unthank has a tendency to have a fasce like a slapped arse most of the time. they certainly livened up on Still Country Dancing After All These Years. Yes, that's right country dancing. I'm talking morris dancing here. I know that morris dancing sends a shiver up my spine, let alone yours. BUT it is a great English tradition, isn't it? We know all about the Irish and Scottish traditional music and dance, but being English you're supposed to be embarrassed by anything traditional. Why is that? Unfortunately for me I'm as English as they come, yes it would be nice to have a bit of Scots fire or Irish heart in my blood but I'm about as Anglo-Saxon as you can get (fair hair, blue eyes both parents families from the east of England. I've even got the most Anglo-Saxon name imaginable).
So this programme went around different parts of England over the summer months discovering old Englaish dance traditions. Yes, I know Cotswold morris can be tiresome (think flowers around hats, bells around ankles, hankies and a  pewter tankard attached to the belt), but some of the real Pagan stuff is terrific, I think. For example, who wouldn't want to go to Padstow during the Obby Oss festival in early May? I know I'd love to go. For those unfamilliar with the Obby Oss, a man dresses as a 'horse' and entices local maidens under the horse's skirt where they become fertile. I reckon that's great. I love the way these traditions are usually about fertility; it always makes me laugh that the Maypole that primary school children dance around is a representation of the penis. Not only that, but seeing someone getting twatted over the head with an inflated pig's bladder is always funny.
Anyway, with all that fertility and Rachel Unthank lightening up rather a lot I started having improper thoughts about two Northumbrian singing sisters myself.
Here's a song about reviving English tradition (although I do find Show of Hands a little worthy sometimes), unfortunately it's come onto the BNP fuckwit radar just recently. Looks like we'll have to claim it back. Why do they spoil everything?


What I don't recommend you watch is something else that was on BBC4 over theweekend called Folk at Christmas. It was rotten. It was like a folk The Good Old Days with those tiresome fuckers Bellowhead. The audience were dressed like pricks, the Unthanks were back in misery mode and the compere thought he was funny. Avoid.

Love in a time of bubble perms*

With all this talk about Wayne Rooney and prostitutes, I think it's time to hark back to a much simpler time. A time when footballists weren't on mega wages and they had to find much simpler pleasures. A time when football philandering was seen as something quite quaint.
I give you, as an example, Nottingham Forest legend Mr Peter Shilton. To furnish those of you who may be unfamiliar with the fact, here's something pasted from The Observer website:

"Shilton was arrested for drink-driving after being found at 5am in a country lane with a woman called Tina in his car. When Tina's husband Colin arrived he said the pair were partially clothed. Shilton hurriedly drove away and crashed into a lamppost. He admitted 'taking a lady for a meal' and was fined £350 and banned from driving for 15 months. He then had to endure countless terrace chants of 'Shilton, Shilton, where's your wife?'"

Now isn't that just a gorgeous little tale of love in the 70s and early 80s? Shilts was obviously missing something from his marriage so he took 'a lady for a meal', did you get that? A 'lady'. His respect for women knows no bounds. And he's put his hand in his pocket and treated her to a slap-up dinner. What a gent.

Now, Shilts obviously couldn't be seen to be booking into a hotel in Nottingham with which to entertain her. No, no, he's too much of a face in the city and his cover would be blown. So Pete has a Jaguar. A Jaguar has nice reclining leather seats. Throw the guy a bone here, he's trying his best. Now, when Colin arrived, down this lane round the back of Nottingham racecourse, near Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre, the couple were partially clothed. Isn't that just a beautiful image? Shilts's little white bum flashing up and down? This was an age before sex became exotic and women started demanding mutual enjoyment. Bloody women. I think the term that could be used here is 'having it off'. This is the time before 'dogging' had been invented so Shilts doesn't hang around, no sir! He's off and crashes into a lamppost, probably with his Farah's Action Slacks and nylon Y-fronts still around his ankles. This is thirty years ago, so there's no Mr Loophole to get him off the charge. Pete takes his punishment like a man and takes his ban and his dreaded returns to the City Ground with Southampton like a man.
Come on, ladies, could you resist a man with a bubble perm, large hair and some blingy medals in the cabinet? Course you can't.

So there's a lesson for today's footballers: you don't have to spend thousands on hookers and Marlboros, just treat a lady with a little respect and she'll deal out what you want in the back of a flashy car round the back of Nottingham racecourse, near Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre.

*I love the way the names Colin and Tina are involved in this story. They're names that are so 'of-the-time', do you not think?**

**I know these little footers can be annoying, but you try reading Stewart Lee's new book. They're on every page and go on and on and on and on.... But I kinda like 'em.

I'm going to ring-rang-a-dong for a holiday

This is going to be my last blog post for a while as, thanks to my employer's policy of making us all have two weeks off when holidays are at their most expensive, I'm going away at the weekend and, along with the fact I'm going to be away for a chunk of August, I'll have limited internet time over the summer. So I thought I'd do a what-I've-been-watching-on-TV round-up.

Let's start with Guesstimation, a dreadful new Saturday night vehicle for Nick Knowles. It won't surprise you to learn that I hate Knowles. He comes across as the kind of idiot who stands at the bar in pubs spraffing off to his pathetic mates about how great he is while mentally undressing every woman who walks into the bar. To compound my hatred I heard him being interviewed on Radio Nottingham last week while trying to promote Guesstimation. While he was at it he thought he'd slip in that he's doing a new reality show. The woman interviewing him stopped him and reminded him that in the past he's slated reality television (while conveniently forgetting that he made his name on DIY SOS, and appeared on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy), well of course he went off on one defending what he'd said and his show. Like I said, an idiot. And have you ever noticed that, apart from DIY SOS, his shows never get past a couple of series before being canned? Why is he still employed by a major terrestrial broadcaster, anyone else would be on QVC by now. Oh, and that permanent 'designer stubble' winds me up a treat an'all.
Anyway, getting back to Guesstimation, it's crap. It surely has to be the dullest game show format ever devised. the aim of the game is, get this, to guess stuff. Well that's not very interesting for the viewer is it? There's no conferring so we have to wonder what two teams of twats are actually thinking. There's nothing for the viewer at home, well, apart from throwing crisps at the telly when one woman guessed that Tokyo was 350 miles away from London. That's the distance form London to Edinburgh.

At the weekend I watched a film on BBC4 called The Mother, it was shown as part of BBC4's season about old codgers. The film's plot revolved around a widow (Anne Reid) having an affair with her daughter's boyfriend (Daniel Craig). I don't know why, but the sight of Ken Barlow's first wife being taken up the Gary Glitter by James Bond has traumatised me and left having nightmares.
The film didn't really go anywhere and at the end I was left feeling worthless and empty. No doubt Reid and Craig had similar feelings when they watched it back. Having said that though, Anne Reid does have nice knockers for her age.

What about Wallander? Have you seen that? I'm not talking about those Kenny Branagh ones from last year, I'm talking about the Swedish ones currently running on BBC4. I've only seen the one, but they're very good. I have to watch them in bursts of a bout thirty minutes at a time though because of the subtitles. Normally when you watch a film with subtitles it's usually French and the action's punctuated with bits of rumpy-pumpy so you have time to give your brain a rest. Wallander's relentless though, the plots moving on constantly so you don't even have time to think that they all sound like the chef off of The Muppets.
Apparently Wallander says an awful lot about modern Sweden. Shame that, I've always fancied going to Sweden, but I don't fancy getting blown up in a bank.

Don't get me started on On Thin Ice, a show where Ben Fogle and James Cracknell try and race other teams to the South Pole. I watch it because I find polar exploration fascinating, but I find the whole thing rather pointless. If you're going there for scientific purposes, fair enough, but to go and race? You need your head looking at. And they're so miserable doing it, especially when Cracknell's foot looks as though it's going to drop off and he wakes every morning to a massive coughing fit. Factor in the fact that you're constantly trying not to get frostbite in your winkle every time you go for a leak, and a happy time is not being had by all. I find it oddly enjoyable though.

Also good to see the return of Only Connect. The contestants are usually overgrown students, but I enjoy it, not least for Victoria Coren. I'd marry her, I would. The problem is she's a shark at poker and I have trouble remembering the rules to snap. Never mind, we can but dream.

While I'm away this blog will celebrate its 1st birthday (a week tomorrow), which is something of a feat for me as my blogs don't normally make it that far. So happy birthday Modern Gutnish! You'll never know how much trouble I had naming you.

Right, that's me then, I'll leave you with my favouritest summer song in the history of the world. Have a good summer and I'll see you in a few weeks. Bye!

Outraged from Newark

I hate my local newspaper, but sometimes they put a story in there that makes me spit crisps all down my front.
Take this week, there was a story under the heading 'Outraged by alfresco sex'. The gist of it was that a married couple, walking through the park near the castle, at 9.50pm on a Saturday night were 'horrified' at the sight of a couple having a bonk. Apparently the married couple thought there were two people fighting, so decided to go for a closer look. The couple who were at it then finished, had a break on a bench (no doubt with a shared gasper and some 'how was it for you?' banter) and then had sex again, all under the watchful gaze of our concerned Newarkers. Apparently one of the accused had drunk seven pints, but 'wasn't drunk'. I'm surprised after that much ale he was still fit for purpose.
This is the killer bit for me, from Miss Sarah Neale, one of the couple's defending solicitors:
'Miss Neale questioned whether the couple who saw them were truly outraged "the couple who saw them were so outraged that they stayed watching and following them for half an hour" she said'. Clearly a solicitor with a sense of humour.
The case was adjourned until October 13th.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

What if the world had ended at 8am this morning? Any end-of-the-world 'friskiness' I might have had were quashed when I found myself, at 8am, walking around a party favours factory in high-visibility waistcoat and hairnet, clutching a clipboard and biro, doing a stocktake on bhaji spice, ground coriander and ginger puree. Perhaps I should have stayed at home and waited for the end that didn't come.
So that wouldn't have made for a very interesting answer to any grandchildren's enquiry about what I did when some Swiss scientists caused the Earth's destruction, would it? But I wouldn't have had any grandkids anyway because the world would have come to an end. Or something. I've confused myself now...